


out of the woods

by novembersmith



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: (not a real haunted house), A Smidge of Real Blood, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dorks, Fake Blood, Halloween, Haunted House, M/M, Mutual Pining, Obliviousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 23:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5109566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novembersmith/pseuds/novembersmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What are you even <i>doing</i> here—” Enjolras says with sudden, furious suspicion, and okay, well. At least that’s more familiar, a solid ground between soft concern and murderous axe-wielding rage. “Courfeyrac said you hate haunted houses, why would you—”</p>
            </blockquote>





	out of the woods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tictactoews](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tictactoews/gifts).



> A Halloween rom-com for tictactoews! I wish I’d had more time to work on it, but I hope you enjoy. :D 
> 
> For the record I did a LOT OF HANDWAVING, just assume this is set in an American university AU and that they're running this haunted hotel/mansion for charity. Partially cribbed/inspired by a haunted house I went to recently. >.> :D
> 
> MUCH THANKS TO MY BETAS AND CHEERLEADERS, TO BE REVEALED LATER.

It figures that the first time Grantaire sees Enjolras again in weeks is immediately followed by him panicking and doing a header into a mirrored wall. It just fucking figures.

“Fuck!” he hears the avenging angel say, dropping its axe and falling to its knees beside him. “Grantaire, Jesus, are you okay?”

Grantaire hadn’t even realized Enjolras knew his name—he’d only been to three meetings before abandoning it as a bad job. Fuck.

“Leave me here to die,” Grantaire says into the floor, and refuses to open his eyes, even when a shaky hand touches his hair, tentative and tugging through the curls.

Except, of course, it makes sense – Enjolras must have realized it was Grantaire before he’d lunged out of the darkness. He wouldn’t have deployed that look of murderous menace for just anyone. Grantaire distinctly remembers Jehan gushing about what a cute Red Riding Enjolras made, how he offered to escort all the children through the haunted woods on the third floor, gave them candy from his wicker basket and everything.

“I don’t believe it,” Grantaire had laughed, because, well. An Enjolras who came bearing sweets, who was kind to children, who unbent from his stern marbled pose to interact with mere mortals? Surely not. “That’s got to be beneath his dignity. I can’t believe even you got his Highness into a costume.”

“You’re missing the best parts of him when you do that,” Jehan had sighed. He has some idea in his head that Grantaire needs to get to _know_ the guy who clearly hates him. As though Grantaire couldn’t see through his cunning scheme to lure him back to the ABC meetings again. As though anyone but Jehan actually wanted him there.

Still, some part of Grantaire must have been picturing _that_ , the soft smiling myth of an approachable Enjolras. Not that he’d been planning on running into Enjolras’s section of the haunted hotel at all.

But then Enjolras had lunged out of the fog directly into Grantaire’s path, face twisted into a snarl and axe raised and gleaming over his shoulder, reflected all around them, coming all directions, inescapable and unreal. Grantaire had reacted with instinctive, bowel-clenching terror. _He hates me, he really fucking hates me._.

His instincts were, as ever, magnificent. If Grantaire recalls correctly, he’d shrieked like a dying animal, lunged backwards without a second glance, and hit a wall with a thoroughly dazing crunch two seconds later.

“Did the mirror break,” Grantaire asks hopelessly into the floorboards, and then gets his answer as he shifts and feels a shard dig into his cheek. “Ow,” he says resignedly, and then all thoughts of pain and scarring and property damage recede for a moment because _he’s being tugged onto Enjolras’s lap_.

“Fuck,” Enjolras says, voice shaky, and rubs a thumb along Grantaire’s stubbled cheek. Grantaire opens his eyes despite himself, and winds up staring directly into Enjolras’s ashen face. _Eyeliner_ , he thinks faintly. No, it’s more than that, it’s war paint, black smeared in a thick bar across Enjolras’s eyes. Red Riding Hood as a warrior, armed and glittering. Grantaire wills his heart to stop picking up pace again, thundering in his chest like it’s ready for another fight-or-flight.

Just, Enjolras’s eyes are so impossibly, luminously blue right now, even in the low light and smoke. Soft, for once. Maybe he really is a ghost. Maybe Grantaire actually is dead.

“What are you even _doing_ here—” Enjolras says with sudden, furious suspicion, and okay, well. At least that’s more familiar, a solid ground between soft concern and murderous axe-wielding rage. “Courfeyrac said you hate haunted houses, why would you—”

“Heard you had candy,” Grantaire says flippantly, and tries to sit up, but is stymied by the firm hands on his shoulders. He’s got a goose egg at his temple, probably, but it’s really just a few scratches. His cheek’s got the worst of it. He’s fine, he wants to get out of here, he wants a drink, he wants to _go home_ and forget that he’s embarrassed himself in front of Enjolras _yet again_.

“You’re bleeding, idiot, stay still,” Enjolras snarls commandingly, and, well, Grantaire has never really responded well to authority.

“I’m fine, Red, ‘tis but a flesh wound,” Grantaire says with what he feels is admirable brightness, and wrenches free. Despite the ache in his head, he manages to sit up and summon a leer, and an eyebrow waggle that is somewhat marred by the trickle of blood down his cheek. “Give me a lollipop and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“You’re hurt, and it’s my fault,” Enjolras argues, ignoring what Grantaire actually wants, of course. He’s all unshakable fierce voice and stubborn face. Somehow, in the melee, Grantaire hadn’t noticed that he’s essentially been nestled in Enjolras’s lap – and also, that Enjolras is wearing a red skirt, and stockings, and thigh-high black boots that are presumably vegan leather. Shit. Fuck. His body doesn’t know what it’s doing, wobbling between terror, annoyance, humiliation, and arousal.

“Ah, there’s our shining leader, taking the wounds of the world on his shoulders. It’s not your fucking fault I’m clumsy. Just—” He stands, and bats away Enjolras’s outstretched hand. “Fuck, just point me at the exit.”

“No, I’ll take you,” Enjolras says, voice tight, and picks up his axe from where he’d dropped it. “Are you sure you’re okay to walk? You hit the wall pretty hard.”

“Take it as a compliment,” Grantaire says, and rubs at his cheek. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“I did apologize for that,” Enjolras replies immediately, with an edge of aggrieved outrage, and Grantaire wonders if it’s because he never fucking apologizes, if he’s that unused to it. He’s certainly not good at it. Grantaire isn’t exactly, at the moment, feeling especially generous.

“Yeah. If you give me a lollipop, I will consider accepting that oh-so-magnanimous apology, Little Red.”

He’s surprised when Enjolras sighs, rummages through his basket—fuck, it actually is a wicker hamper—and finds a cherry BlowPop, handing it over.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” he asks again, raising a hand towards Grantaire’s head before pulling it back.

“Had worse,” Grantaire says around the confection, already feeling a little bit better with sugar in his system. “Lay on, Macduff.”

Enjolras surprises him with a laugh, soft and more a huff of breath than a chuckle, but—it’s more of a positive response than he’d ever dared dream of provoking before.

“Just for that, I’m taking you out through the Birnam woods, Big Bad,” he says dryly, and takes Grantaire’s arm.

“Fuck, I didn’t even think—” Grantaire says, startled, and manages not to choke on his candy. “Uh. I guess I am kind of your wolf for the evening, huh? Wow, talk about subverting that particular fairy tale.”

Enjolras was looking straight ahead, squinting at the seven doors facing them in the mirrored corridor, but at that he cuts his eyes quickly at Grantaire before looking away again. “I thought… I mean. You knew I was doing Little Red Riding Hood, didn’t you? Courfeyrac and Jehan said they told you.”

Grantaire feels like a moron, but that’s business as usual, so he manages to refrain from burying his face in his hands and bemoaning his idiocy. “I didn’t… really think about that,” he admits. “I always do the Big Wolf on Campus thing, I have since I was a freshman and found the letter jacket at Goodwill. I dunno, once you splurge on a tail and ears it seems like a shame to waste them. Plus, I’m told I rock the scruffy look?”

Enjolras doesn’t respond, just makes a low sound, then darts forward and picks a door at what looks like random. It opens into a small, cramped room, full of clothwork dummies and skeletons. The corner has a couple of ghosts, standing around a man sewing at a table. It’s all low light and unseen speakers are thrumming around them, discordant and crackling. The ghosts nod at Enjolras, then tilt their heads at Grantaire curiously, and Grantaire struggles not to tug Enjolras’s warmth, the solidity and realness of him, closer.

Grantaire _does_ hate haunted houses, just, he also kind of loves them. It’s a rush, a buoyant flood of adrenaline, and the really good ones leave him feeling unreal. Like he’s slipped out of this world and gotten suspended between it and another. This house is a collaboration between Les Amis and the university’s theater department, and now that Grantaire’s inside it he can see why it’s been such a success. He’s already feeling inspiration tingling in his fingers, waiting for him. Something about mirrors, and masks. About the space between, liminal, powerful, opportunities and pitfalls, insubstantial but grabbable. Mixed media, maybe. Watercolors and metal.

He just has to make it out of here, first.

“I thought you were making fun of me,” Enjolras says lowly, once they’re out of that room and in yet another a dusty corridor. It’s all dust-cloth covered furniture, looking like ghosts themselves, of a house once well-lived in and loved, and it’s long and crooked, echoing. Grantaire stops looking for actors who might be lurking, waiting to jump out at them, and stares at Enjolras, shocked. He blinks a couple times, but no, Enjolras is still staring straight ahead, worrying his red lower lip between his teeth.

“Not everything’s about you, Enjolras,” Grantaire says disbelievingly, and could bite his tongue almost instantly, because he can _feel_ how Enjolras stiffens next to him. “I mean, why would I even do that?” he says quickly, trying to fix it, which is fucking hilarious, because when has Grantaire ever been able to fix _anything_?

“I have no idea why you do anything,” Enjolras grits out, and then squints at another door. “This one, I think.”

“Look, I don’t mean to cast aspersions on your path-finding forestry skills, but. Are you lost, Little Red?” Grantaire asks, amused, and gets a blue-eyed glare in return.

“ _No_ ,” Enjolras snaps, and leads them further into the gloom beyond. The speakers embedded in the walls are playing music now, something that sounds old-fashioned, a twenties jazz number, eerie and light and crooning, with tinkling piano, and Enjolras swears. “Shit, just hold on—”

A group bursts into the room—visitors, all wide-eyed, following a blood-soaked woman with wild eyes, and a seemingly innocent bathtub next to them begins to glow red and throbbing. A hand emerges on the edge, and then a dark head appears. Grantaire despite himself lets out a squeak and flings himself at Enjolras. Who, surprisingly, catches him and holds him close, an arm protective and warm around his back.

“No,” moans the blood-soaked woman, all in white, and turns to claw at a locked door beside her. The figure in the bathtub laughs, high and creaking, and emerges dripping with one foot on the floor. It squelches. The other visitors are all plastered against the wall, huddled in a giggling, nervous heap, and Grantaire and Enjolras are alone next to the scene.

“Just actors, come on,” Enjolras murmurs into Grantaire’s ear, and Grantaire wants to snarl that _he knows that_ , but he just clings on as they edge past the scene.

“Sorry, that’s supposed to be for the over-18 crowd only,” Enjolras says when they’re in a new hallway.

“You _are_ lost, what the fuck,” Grantaire realizes, and maybe he should sound less accusing when he’s clutching Enjolras like a life-line. But he’d mostly been joking, before. He really, really doesn’t like the idea of being lost in here. “And fuck you, I’m over eighteen. I’m more over eighteen than you are.”

“I _know_ that,” Enjolras says, and glares at him. “Just, um. Usually someone comes to get me at the end of my shift. I thought I’d—I’m pretty sure this door’s the right one.”

The door opens onto a graveyard scene, low ceiling and mounds of dirt and tilted crosses. There’s a bird skull and a pool of presumably-fake blood in front of one, next to a rosary.

“Ha ha, we’re going to die here,” Grantaire says brightly, and crunches down nervously on the lollipop to get at the chewing gum inside. What he’s going to do with the leftover stick now, he has no idea. It’s not like there are trashcans in this faux-cemetery. Maybe he’l shove it in Enjolras’s stupid golden hair, peeking out of the red hood like sunlight.

“I’ll protect you, gentle wolf,” Enjolras says dryly, brandishing his foam axe with a majestic swoop and a frankly, slightly silly, little hop. Grantaire’s heart does a thudding thing entirely unrelated to his concern re: zombies emerging from the catacombs to the left. “You’re safe with me.” 

Then he takes Grantaire’s lollipop stick, wrapping it in a tissue and putting it in a pocket full of other candy debris, clearly remnants from kids he’s met earlier in the night. He’s the worst. This is the worst. Grantaire is going to give Jehan the world’s largest ‘I told you so’ in the world when he finally finds him again. _This is the worst_.

“Anyway, we’re only a little turned around. It’ll be fine,” Enjolras says, chin up, and then leads them straight into hell.  
It’s some kind of nursery, a child’s room, and it has a bunch of terrifying dolls that are strung up to turn and look over whenever someone brushes a tripwire. Grantaire has to revise his parameters for ‘worst’ – he’s tucked himself firmly under Enjolras’s arm, shame temporarily set aside entirely, and is deeply regretting not having brought a lighter in with him _so he can burn this hellhole down _.__

__“Okay. We are, maybe, a _little_ lost,” Enjolras admits, which if Grantaire wasn’t in the throes of existential terror would find _hilarious_. “But we just have to find one of the staff that’s not acting a scene out – they’ll point us in the right direction.”_ _

__“Who made this room and have they had therapy,” Grantaire hisses. Enjolras just laughs and strides serenely through the room, totally unbothered by either the small scruffy limpet attached to his side or the dusty, lifeless-staring eyes following them._ _

__“Seriously, why did you come at all, when you hate this so much?” Enjolras says, asking what Grantaire has to admit is a fairly reasonable question, given that he’s still clutching at Enjolras’s arm and trying to basically meld them together as leave the room of the dolls behind, emerging in a poorly-lit staircase. Grantaire takes a moment to make sure no tiny scuttling porcelain figures are following them before answering._ _

__“Jehan asked me to. He helped design it, and he wanted a good turn-out for you guys, so. I came, of course I came,” he says simply, running a hand over his face and trying to catch his breath. Enjolras doesn’t respond for a moment._ _

__“Is the bleeding stopped?” he asks gruffly, and pulls Grantaire’s hand down to inspect his cheek. His thumb carefully strokes along just beneath the scratch. “We should really disinfect this.”_ _

__Disinfect my _heart_ , Grantaire thinks nonsensically. “It’s fine,” he says, licking his lips, staring up at Enjolras. He’s only ever seen him from a distance before, declaiming, or sneering, or smiling at someone else. He’s never seen—never imagined—the dusting of freckles across his nose. “Told you, I’ve had worse.” It may be a lie._ _

__Enjolras lets go of him abruptly. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he mutters, putting the axe behind his shoulders and stretching. He seems to consider the two doors facing them on the landing. Grantaire considers suggesting they roll a dice, since Enjolras _clearly has no idea where they are_ , but before he can Enjolras lunges forward, mind seemingly made up._ _

__“And I don’t _hate_ it,” Grantaire adds after a moment. Somehow they’ve wound up in a room that is a dead-end, completely empty and also, completely inexplicably, full of old-fashioned jars full of candy. This room is a considerable upgrade from the last. _ _

__Enjolras had made a small sound of delighted surprise upon recognizing his surroundings, and is casually refilling his hamper with handfuls.  
“Don’t hate what?” he asks, looking up with a gummy worm bright green in his mouth. Grantaire’s brain takes a second to reboot._ _

__“Um. This, the house,” and feels obscurely disappointed when Enjolras turns back around, fussing with his hamper. “I mean, it’s fun, it’s really cool, you guys did a fantastic job. Jehan and I were supposed to stick together, he _promised_. But I fucking bolted during the zombie scene in the basement and I lost him. Just… Well, you know. I’m a coward. I mean, you saw me. Thank fuck you aren’t dressed as a clown, I probably would actually have pissed myself.”_ _

__And developed some really inappropriate kinks, but he’s keeping that to himself._ _

__“No. A coward wouldn’t have come,” Enjolras argues, peeking over at him from beneath his hood, before turning and staring intently again at a jar of jewel-colored gummy spiders like it held the secrets of the universe._ _

__“Well, now you know a coward _would_ have come, because here I am,” Grantaire says, holding out his arms and doing a little twirl. He lets himself relax a little, though, for the first time in what feels like hours. This is a sweet-scented oasis in the hotel—a respite from the haunting, a base to retreat to. “Learn something new every day.”_ _

__“No. No, you’re not a coward,” Enjolras says, abandoning the candy to look accusingly at him, and Grantaire lets himself straighten and glare back._ _

__“Yeah, well, you don’t know me,” he points out with a miserable smirk, and then blinks, wrong-footed, when Enjolras winces._ _

__“I’d like to?” he says, more question than statement, then corrects himself, stating it more firmly. “I’d like to. I’m sorry. I know—I was out of line, that last meeting. I didn’t mean that. You’re not pointless, even if you disagree with our aims. I don’t think that. I—I’m sorry. You just… I lost my temper.”_ _

“You don’t have to lie because we’re stuck together,” Grantaire says, leaning against the doorway. They’re going to have to leave this safe nook and go back into the haunted labyrinth soon enough. “And…” he admits. “It’s not, uh. Like I wasn’t trying to make you lose your temper, back then. A bit. A little.” Look at me, look at me, he remembers thinking, and wants to smack his past self with a shovel. Stop ignoring me, look at me, look at— _oh shit he’s looking at me_. 

__“A bit,” Enjolras says, a smile curling quickly and disappearing, like smoke. “Still. I—you’re just very good at pushing buttons. My buttons.”_ _

__“Exactly!” Grantaire has his back to the door now, and can’t quite catch his breath. Enjolras is looking right at him. “Right. So it’s not your fault you snapped. And it’s _also_ not your fault I freaked out and ran into a fucking wall, seriously.”_ _

__“It is, though. I overdid it, that jump scare on you,” Enjolras says slowly, licking his lips and staring at Grantaire. His eyes are impossibly blue, the black band around them enhancing the color to something supernaturally beautiful. His cheeks are pink, like he’s been running hard, but they’re ensconced in candy-scented safety, and neither of them are running. “Because it was you. I thought—I figured you, you were here to make fun of me, again, and I was mad. I wanted to… impress you. Prove you wrong. I don’t know. I’m—it was poorly done of me. I’m sorry.”_ _

__Grantaire can’t even parse this. “I can’t believe you even recognized me,” he says, stupidly, and he doesn’t think he’d say any of this, anywhere else, but this feels like a dream, unreal, and the words are slipping out somehow. “I didn’t think I really registered to you? At all. Let alone in costume.”_ _

__“Of course I recognized you. I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while, but you never came back to the meetings,” Enjolras says, and takes what almost seems a hesitant step closer. He’s so—so much right now, tall and beautiful, ferociously competent and feminine and masculine at once. Grantaire wouldn’t have thought there was a hesitant bone in his body if he wasn’t witnessing this right now, this nervous approach, with his hands clutching the wicker basket of candy to him like it’s a teddy bear to his chest. “I treated you badly. I lost my temper, and then—now—I scared you so badly you hurt yourself. You, of all people, I—fuck. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”_ _

__“It’s okay,” Grantaire says dumbly, and watches himself take a step forward like it’s an out of body experience. “Let’s just… get out of here, yeah? Then we can talk.”_ _

__“I’d like that,” Enjolras says intently, and takes his hand—not his arm this time, but his hand, Grantaire’s sweaty hand in Enjolras’s cool damp one. Fuck. Jesus and all the saints. Maybe Grantaire really is dead, and if this is the candy-coated afterlife, and if so, clearly he wasn’t such a fuck up after all. “And, um. You do. Rock the scruff, I mean. It looks good.”_ _

__“Good enough to eat?” Grantaire asks, because he is, at heart, a little shit._ _

__“I thought that was my line,” Enjolras says, raising a golden eyebrow at him, and Grantaire manages through Herculean effort not to choke on his own tongue._ _

__“Well, if you’re offering,” he manages, and the smile Enjolras gives him is way more staggering a blow than any axe or ghoul or zombie clown could deliver._ _

__“Guess we’d better make it out of here alive, then,” he says, and leads Grantaire out into the dark hall again. Grantaire stares down at their linked hands and tries not to trip over himself overthinking this. “I think I know where we are now. This should be the mermaid tank—or not,” he says, because there is a distinct lack of mermaids, and a distinct presence of skeletons at bar, with gleaming bottles. One waves._ _

__“I have to admit, it’s kind of nice knowing the fearless leader isn’t always perfect.”_ _

__Enjolras snorts. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I fuck up all the time. _You_ always seem to catch me fucking up, and to point it out, in fact.” Before Grantaire can say anything, he says, “Hey, Carlos, could you, uh. Help us out?”_ _

__The skeleton, which Grantaire, now that he’s reluctantly looking more closely, is actually an amazingly well-done painted person, all sugar skull swirls and anatomic detail. Grantaire senses Joly’s and Jehan’s hands in this._ _

__“You want a drink, or you just here to poach my sugar, sugar?” the skeleton asks cheerfully._ _

__“Just directions to the lobby, please.”_ _

__“Hah, lost again? You wanna hit the hallway with the bleeding walls, staircase down the end, all the way to the bottom floor, then out the door to the left. Follow the footprints on the floor and the music in your ears, you’ll find our C singing. Good turn out tonight, huh? Glad it’s almost closing time, I need a _break_.”_ _

__Closing time. The visitors _have_ been pretty scarce on the ground—Grantaire isn’t sure how long he and Enjolras have been wandering the empty halls, now. It feels like they’d stepped out of time, like it’s stretched and twisted, taffy-like, around them._ _

__“Thanks, Carlos,” Enjolras says over his shoulder, tugging Grantaire along with him. “See you at the party.”_ _

__“Party?” Grantaire asks, and snorts as Enjolras tries to choose the wrong door. “This way, Red.”_ _

__“It’s Halloween, there’s all sorts of things set up,” Enjolras says, extremely casual. He’s still holding Grantaire’s hand, heedless of how much it’s sweating, now. “You should stick around.”_ _

__“Yeah,” Grantaire says, feeling a little dazed, and then they’re out of the dark hallway and in a room that is bright and smoky. A gin joint, from the twenties, with Courfeyrac crooning at a silver microphone. He’s in a floor-length red sequined dress, with a gently smoking cocktail in one hand and a fan in the other. He looks _amazing_._ _

__“See, safe and sound, no thanks to me,” Enjolras says, squeezing his hand._ _

__“Nah, I’d probably still be lost in the hall of mirrors,” Grantaire says. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I feel pretty confident of the floorplan, now, unlike you—” “Hey!” “—but I doubt I’d have held it together enough get anywhere without your help. I’d still be hiding under a table somewhere.”_ _

__“We work well together, is that what you’re saying?” Enjolras says, looking over at Grantaire and meeting his eyes, then looking back at Courfeyrac quickly._ _

__This is still a strangely liminal space, outside the normal world, with old-timey jazz and mummies wandering past and every face covered in some kind of mask—but he’s starting to feel almost like this is really happening. Enjolras’s hand in his. Enjolras looking nervous, his lower lip between his teeth again. Chapped, Grantaire thinks, his brain misfiring. Balm. He wants to be a balm. He wants—_ _

__He’s hit with a staggering force, and Enjolras lets go of his hand._ _

__“Grantaire, I’m so fucking sorry, are you okay?” Jehan has him in a vice grip. He’s deceptively strong for being so delicate, especially tonight—he’s dressed as flowers, a fae bouquet, as he’d told Grantaire earlier. All ethereal twists of vine and petals and bird bones, looks like he’s stepped directly out of the boughs of some tangled wood, brittle and light, but with iron beneath, gleaming and unbreakable. “I’ve been looking for you for hours, are you okay? Are you _bleeding_? What happened?”_ _

__“Bled, past tense, it’s barely a scratch,” Grantaire laughs, and hugs Jehan, heedless of the thorns. “You guys did a hell of a job on this, literally. I think you may have rewritten some of Dante’s best work with those rooms.”_ _

__“I really am so sorry I lost you,” Jehan sighs, but a smile is starting to emerge on his face as he looks between Grantaire and Enjolras. “You found a guide, though?”_ _

__“Guide is such a generous word,” Grantaire says with an exaggerated wince, and then has a moment of _fuck, did I go too far is that okay was that okay_ —before he gets tapped gently on the throat with an axe._ _

__“Watch it, wolf,” Enjolras says, and sticks out his tongue._ _

__And there it is, Grantaire thinks dizzily. The worst, most lethal thing in the haunted hotel, wearing thigh-high boots and a silly smile._ _

__“So you made it just in time—” Jehan starts to say, and is cut off by a delighted trill from the microphone. They’ve been spotted._ _

__“ _There’s_ our Red Riding at last, and he’s found a wolf, too! He must have gotten distracted in the woods, and I can see why. Your hair is perfect, R, I love it. And that tail! Bring the boys over, won’t you, Jehan, corsage of mine. I do believe this is the perfect pair to round out our apple-off. Don’t forget, guests of ours, that the winner with the most apples in sixty seconds will get a special cocktail, concocted by our very own mad chemist Combefere.”_ _

__“No,” Enjolras protests immediately, even as Jehan tows them over to the stage. “I told you, I don’t. I won’t! I don’t even like apples.”_ _

__“What a _lie_ ” Courfeyrac says, and kisses his cheek. “I was worried you got lost again, E, how many times is it now?”_ _

__"It’s not a lie. I like apples _normally_ , I _don’t_ like apples that are bobbing in water that I cannot pick up with my hands as nature intended,” Enjolras is protesting. They’re on the stage next to Courfeyrac, but there’s wooden buckets all around the room, with people surrounding each, laughing and splashing. Combeferre is moving among them, stately and eerily handsome in a gray, pinstriped suit, taking notes on a clipboard._ _

__“No one can actually do this, it’s ridiculous and unnecessary and unfun and I’ll ruin my make-up,” Enjolras is still complaining as Courfeyrac tries to tug him down towards the bucket, cackling._ _

__“Eh, I can do it just fine,” Grantaire says, and feels a frisson of regret when they all turn to look at him. “Apple-bobbing, right? It’s not so hard.”_ _

__“Gauntlet thrown, by our gar au loup! Come on, E, you can’t let the wolf win, can you?”_ _

__“Ugh,” Enjolras says, but seems resigned to his fate. “You go first, then, I want to watch your method.”_ _

__Mistake, Grantaire notes distantly. I have made a mistake. Apple-bobbing is not per se the sexiest of activities—at all. It’s the anti-sex. It’s all awkward lunging and using his over-large nose and even over-large mouth and teeth to snag an apple with ease, a party trick he’d employed with gusto as a kid at Halloween parties that he now deeply, thoroughly regrets bringing up._ _

__But he can’t _back down_. “Going to take notes?” Grantaire wants to know, rolling up his sleeves with a flair, shaking out his limbs like he’s about to go into a boxing ring. “Better pay close attention, I’m like apple lightning. Blink and you’ll miss it.”_ _

__“Notes? I will have you know I have a mind like a steel trap,” Enjolras says haughtily, eyes narrowing, then he huffs out a laugh and smiles when Grantaire taps his nose._ _

__“I’ll be sure not to stick a paw in it, then,” Grantaire says, and then nearly overbalances when Jehan elbows him. He’s beaming at the two of them like they’re a basket of kittens, or something, dangerously delighted and Grantaire has the urge to tackle him, suddenly, cover his mouth and beg him not to say anything_ _

__Courfeyrac has sashayed back to his microphone and is reading off the rules and tidbits of folklore—the five-fold seeds, and Celts, the goddess Pomona, soulmates and dreams, things Grantaire’s magpie brain would normally be all over, but it’s snagged on one rule in particular—to make it a bit more _fun_ , Courfeyrac had said, with an evil lilt in his voice._ _

__“Ready?” Enjolras asks, and Grantaire bites his tongue on a ‘nope no definitely not’ and kneels in front of the bucket. Apples gleam warm yellows and reds in the tub, bobbing gently. He holds his wrists behind his back, as is tradition, per usual, then Enjolras takes them in his hands to hold them still, which is _not_._ _

__He almost can’t breathe for the pulse thudding in his wrists, in his throat. Enjolras has a firm grip on him, is plastered almost against his body._ _

__“I have you,” Enjolras says in his ear, quiet and warm and close. There’s something that might almost be a nuzzle, right at the corner of his jaw, but Grantaire can’t think about that, at all, ever again, if he wants to live through this. “Ready?”_ _

__“Hngh,” Grantaire says coherently back, and oh, look, there’s a bucket of water for him to stick his head in conveniently right in front of him, that’s lucky._ _

__He has to lift his head eventually, though, and the apple he comes up with is tart and sour in his mouth._ _

__“Holy shit, that’s got to be a record, you’re like an apple-seeking missile,” Courfeyrac marvels. “Take it, E, I want to see him do another.”_ _

__“Ooh, is R doing his apple trick?” Bossuet says, and he and Joly and Musichetta appear. “This year I’ll beat you, honestly, I’ve been practicing.”_ _

__“You’ve been drowning yourself periodically,” Joly says, laughing, and Grantaire wants to join in and tease them, talk about Halloween parties past, but Enjolras is still holding on to his wrists and more than that, is just—so close, almost wrapped around him. He can smell lemon shampoo, and smoke, and each breath he takes he feels ever more certain that their breathing has synced, that Enjolras is matching his, deliberately._ _

__Then he turns his head and Enjolras leans forward and delicately, carefully bites down, then pulls back with the apple in his own mouth. It’s green, and Enjolras’s eyes above it are all blue-ring around dark pupil. Jehan takes the apple from him, and places it in a basket next to them. Enjolras’s mouth is red, and wet with juice, and—_ _

__Grantaire turns around and sticks his head back in the bucket. Another apple. Another. Eventually they’ll run out of apples and the night will be over and he doesn’t know how he feels about that. He doesn’t know how he feels at _all_. Enjolras is the only one not saying anything now, not talking, just holding on._ _

__“And, time! Good lord, and seven apples. That has to be a record. You’re an apple savant, Grantaire. Are you sure you even want to try a turn after that?” Courfeyrac asks Enjolras eventually, and now Combeferre is there, looking like at any second he might actually analyze the physics of Grantaire’s technique—which, since it’s mostly ‘have a big nose’ he really doesn’t want to hear._ _

__“I—what? Oh. No, I’ll try,” Enjolras says, and lets go of Grantaire’s wrists. Has it really only been a minute? Fucking hell. Enjolras pulls down his hood and shakes out his hair, fumbling for a tie around his wrists. “Surely I can manage at least one apple, if Grantaire can get seven.”_ _

__“Big words,” Grantaire says, like an idiot. “Put your money where your mouth is. Or your mouth where my mouth was, rather.” He wants to stick his head back in the bucket immediately, but Enjolras is just rolling his eyes and kneeling down in front of the apples dubiously. Jehan dumps a new batch in, and Enjolras eyes them with such dark, determined suspicion that Grantaire feels like his chest might actually explode, heart too full of fondness for his ribs to contain._ _

__“Just remember to hold your breath and lead with the nose, not the chin,” he advises._ _

__“Nose first. Nose. Got it,” Enjolras says to himself under his breath, and Grantaire takes Enjolras’s offered wrists, holding them carefully still. Enjolras’s skin is impossibly soft, and delicate, and Grantaire can feel the blood beneath it, hot and alive and beating under his fingers. He’s paying attention more to his sudden terror that he’ll leave marks behind, dirt, or bruises, or some kind of stain, than to what’s actually going on with the bucket full of apples in front of them._ _

__So he’s still not sure, afterwards, how Enjolras manages it, but seven seconds later the entire bucket overturns. Enjolras is spluttering and coughing in Grantaire’s arms, looking nothing so much like a wet, drippingly furious cat, and Combeferre is holding up Courfeyrac, who is laughing so hard that actual tears are leaking down his face, leaving tracks of mascara behind._ _

__“How,” Grantaire manages, and tucks a sodden curl behind Enjolras’s ear. He’s laughing, too, even as Enjolras _glares_. “You forgot to hold your breath, didn’t you? Jesus, you must be freezing.” Enjolras had gotten the majority of the deluge, though Grantaire’s trousers are soaked. “Take my jacket, it’s mostly dry.”_ _

__“I’m not cold,” Enjolras says, chin up and stubborn, mouth slanted down. His face paint is, as predicted, a mess. The band of black around his eyes has leaked down in tracks of grey towards his chin. From one angle he looks like a post-apocalyptic warrior, unapproachable and fierce. But if Grantaire squints, tilts his head, looks from the corner of the eye, there’s a sulky, miserable kitten._ _

__Suddenly that’s all Grantaire can see._ _

__“Look, at least let me fix this,” Grantaire says helplessly, still chuckling despite himself. Enjolras’s mouth has curled with something between amused resignation and embarrassment. Grantaire thumbs away the streaks of face-paint carefully, rough thumb against Enjolras’s sharp cheekbones, until the skin beneath is clean and pink with scrubbing._ _

__“There,” he says, and wipes his hands on his jeans before tweaking a curl. “Good as new, Goldilocks.”_ _

__“Red Riding Hood,” Enjolras corrects, but he does let Grantaire drape his letter jacket over his shoulders. It’s patched with skulls and stained with fake-blood from Halloween’s past, and probably smells like cigarette smoke and god knows what else, deodorant, inadvisable amounts of cologne—but Enjolras just noses against the collar of it for a second and doesn’t say anything, so Grantaire’s counting it as a win._ _

__Except then Enjolras says quietly, “Grantaire, can we talk?” which is kind of terrifying, a solemn spike of reality into the bubble of an evening Grantaire doesn’t want to pop yet._ _

__“About how bad you are at bobbing for apples?” he deflects. “I could teach you, but I’d have to charge.”_ _

__“I don’t care about how bad I am at bobbing for apples,” Enjolras lies like a dog, and then stands, holding out his hand to Grantaire. “Just, can we go outside for a moment?”_ _

__Grantaire lets himself be lead, feeling out of his own body, out of control as he gets tugged through the laughing crowd._ _

__The world still exists outside of the haunted hotel—there are cars, and street lights, and neon signs. City sounds, and people talking and walking past. Grantaire almost expects Enjolras to disappear, vanish like mist from between his fingers. But he just turns and leans against the brick wall, solid, corporeal, staring down at his boots. His boots, Jesus Christ and all the saints, a sinner like Grantaire shouldn't even get to see a vision like this._ _

__And he's in Grantaire’s _jacket_ , his _letter jacket_ , which is doing something truly stupid to Grantaire’s heartbeat. _ _

__“Did you know that in Cornwall they play a version of bobbing for apples where they’re, like, hanging off this spinning candelabra? Instead of in water, I mean,” he says nervously, shifting his feet. “You’re supposed to grab them without getting hot wax everywhere, which, hah, I guess we’re lucky you didn't set yourself on fire, really—”_ _

__“Will you go out with me?” Enjolras interrupts, spitting it out so quick and fierce that for a moment Grantaire instinctively bristles. Then he just stares, gaping, as Enjolras slowly goes red and stares back down at his feet again._ _

__“I’m sorry, _what_?”_ _

__“I thought that was pretty clear,” Enjolras says frostily to his boots. “If you're not interested, you can just say so, instead of making me repeat myself.”_ _

__“But you don't like me,” Grantaire protests dumbly, and at that Enjolras looks up, frowning._ _

__“But I do?” he says, twisting his axe in his hands and scowling, head tilted slightly. “I _do_. I find you attractive. And funny, and clever. And I just asked you out. I—we held hands. You—I'm not sure how much more clear I can be. Is it about—I did apologize, for before. I really am sorry.”_ _

__Grantaire feels drunk, despite his last drink having been hours before. It's cold out, their breaths misting in the air, and Enjolras has to be freezing in his wet skirt and stockings, and Grantaire feels like his blood’s been spiked. He's dizzy. His head is about to float clear off his shoulders. Things like this _do not happen to him_._ _

__“Combeferre says it's because I never learned to go past pulling pigtails, but—that you seemed like you hadn't, either, so I should go for it. But you never came back to the meetings, and I—”_ _

__On some level, Grantaire's been operating under the assumption that everything previous, the tension strung tangibly thrumming between them, was just a side-effect of the setting. The adrenaline and camaraderie of being lost together in a haunted world, of being caught up in the intangible magic of it. Something that would be blown apart once out in the open air again._ _

__“I know you think I’m naïve and unrealistic, and—maybe I am, but. Do you dislike me? I—it's okay if you do. I’ll understand, and you should still come back. To the meetings. Everyone wants you there. I want you there. I won't bother you, but—”_ _

__Grantaire manages to shake off the paralysis that had gripped him and lunges forward. Enjolras yelps slightly as his head hits the wall, but then he's making a pleased noise and wrapping himself around Grantaire, kissing him back._ _

__He's still wet, cold and clammy, and his kisses are at first a little too fierce, all open mouth and teeth, before Grantaire pulls back and kisses him again, light, mouths barely touching. Enjolras stares at him, cheeks red and smudged with paint, and Grantaire wet slowly leans back in and kisses his lower lip, lingering and soft. Pulls back to look again and Enjolras seems to have melted a bit, open wet red mouth and wide, wondering eyes._ _

__Grantaire wonders if that was his first kiss, then has to set that aside before it renders him incapable of further thought. He has to say something, this is important, he has to make words._ _

__“You’re gorgeous, and funny, and brilliant, and—so fucking much, I like you so fucking much,” Grantaire gets out. “Please go out with me. I mean, I'll go out with you, I'll go anywhere with you, anywhere you'll have me, I'll go back in that fucking nursery from hell if you want—”_ _

__“I don't think that will be necessary, but if you want. Whatever you want, I don't want to go anywhere? Here is good,” Enjolras babbles, actually babbles, and he's smiling down at Grantaire, bright and easy and so happy. Grantaire has to kiss him again. He goes up on his toes to push Enjolras against the wall. Apples, he tastes like apples, like candy and spice, sweet and sharp._ _

__Enjolras learns fast, tipping his head back and making devastatingly hungry noises. He learns way _too_ fast, in fact, because he's got a leg up around Grantaire's waist now, all leather and stockings, and when he bites down gently on Grantaire's lower lip, Grantaire whimpers helplessly. His hand has found it's way up Enjolras’s leg, impossibly long and trembling, and up his skirt, and… _ _

__“Is this okay?” he whispers against Enjolras’s mouth. “Is it, I can stop? I should—”_ _

__They're in public, they really should stop. But Enjolras just laughs, low and delicious, and says, “I feel like I must not be communicating very clearly right now. Here, does this help?” And then he rolls his fucking hips, grinding up into Grantaire's jeans, which are getting really, pretty fucking tight now. Grantaire grabs a handful of glorious ass under what feel like silk panties and squeezes, and Enjolras _moans_._ _

__“Fuck,” Grantaire says reverently. “I do really appreciate clear communication, thank you, oh my god.”_ _

__“I think we work pretty well together,” Enjolras says thickly in between kisses. “I think we'll make a good team.”_ _

__“Hey, guys, sooo Courf entered you in the costume conte—oh my god!” Jehan squeaks. “Oh my god, sorry, congratulations, I'm so happy! Oh my god, look at you two.”_ _

__“Jehan, please go away,” Enjolras growls, sending a glare over Grantaire's shoulder, and Grantaire laugh, full-bellied and delighted._ _

__“We’re kind of on the street, babe,” he says, and nips at the corner of Enjolras’s jaw, awed and amazed at the way it makes Enjolras shiver. “We can do this again later. If you want. We’ve got time, there's no rush.”_ _

__“There is so,” Enjolras argues, rocking his hips insistently, which despite the cold wind and damp chill heats Grantaire down to his socks. “Ugh, fine, but only because I know if we don't Courfeyrac will come after us and I'd rather not be interrupted.”_ _

__He slides down the wall, straightening his skirt, then he takes Grantaire's hand, ignoring Jehan's cooing. “Lead the way, Grantaire? I don't want us to get lost again.”_ _

__“It’s fine," Grantaire says, squeezing his hand and stepping back inside a haunted house with more lightness than he'd ever imagined possible. “You know," he says, stealing a kiss as they cross the threshold. “I actually think we've managed to figure out where we’re going.”_ _

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Out of the Woods](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8438575) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton), [SomethingIncorporeal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomethingIncorporeal/pseuds/SomethingIncorporeal)




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